January 6, 2013 9:28pm ESTJanuary 6, 2013 9:50am ESTThe NHL lockout is over. What next? Jesse Spector has three answers for questions that will be asked in coming days. One of them involves Alex Ovechkin, who has said he's headed to the 2014 Olympics, no matter what.

NEW YORK—The NHL is coming back after players and owners agreed Sunday morning to the framework of a collective bargaining agreement to end the lockout after 113 days. While it will be great to start talking hockey again, there are still some lingering questions to ponder—and the NHL and NHLPA will have to answer them together.

The most pressing logistical issues—when will the ratification vote be held, when will the schedule be released, when will camp open and games begin—will be settled soon. Until then, here are three other questions.

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Will NHL players take part in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia?

This should be a no-brainer. Sending NHL players to the Olympics gets exponentially more exposure for the league than could hope to be gained otherwise, and that will be important in the NHL's first full season after the lockout. Since NBC, the NHL's national television partner, has the American television rights to the Olympics, there is all the more reason to take part.

In addition to all of the positive reasons for NHL players to showcase their game on the global stage, it also would be damaging to the league's relationship with the union—which needs some repair—to forbid them from going. For more than three years, Alex Ovechkin has said that he wants to play in his home country, and there is nobody who can stop him.

"It is what I want and what I’m going to do," Ovechkin said in 2009.

There is no reason not to have Ovechkin in the Olympics, nor any other world-class player. The Games are about the best of the best, and the NHL should be there.

It is incumbent upon the league and union to quickly settle their differences on realignment and solve the problem of having the Winnipeg Jets in the Southeast Division. It is too late to do anything for this season, and the Jets will have to traipse around the East for another year after their move from Atlanta, but that is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue.

The easiest solution is simply to have the Jets move to the Western Conference, switching places with the Columbus Blue Jackets, who would benefit from an instant in-conference rivalry with the Pittsburgh Penguins. A four-division solution should remain in play, as it allows far greater flexibility for expansion or relocation in the future.

How will the NHL try to win back alienated fans?

Another two weeks, and the lockout would have been twice as long as last year's playoffs. It will have been seven months between the end of the Stanley Cup Finals and the start of the regular season once the puck finally drops.

Without paying customers to generate hockey-related revenue, the entire lockout is all the more useless, so it is imperative that the NHL and NHLPA work together to get fans back into the game. Phoenix Coyotes captain Shane Doan said that while there might be "one or two" rule changes coming, there will not be any radical changes to the on-ice product as there were after the 2004-05 lockout, when the league introduced the shootout.

And, rest assured, simply painting "Thank You Fans" on the ice again is not going to cut it.

"We'll be talking to the fans, most importantly," commissioner Gary Bettman said Sunday morning. "But at this point in time, we still have some work to do."

"The fans can get back to watching people who are skating, not the two of us," said Donald Fehr, the NHLPA's executive director.

"Absolutely," Bettman said.

Letting fans "get back to watching people who are skating" is of the utmost importance, and to do so, the league would be well served to offer its Center Ice out-of-market television package either for free or at a significantly reduced cost for the significantly reduced season that is soon to begin.

Fans will also want cheaper tickets, but that is a decision that must be made on a team-by-team basis to suit the people in each individual market. The Montreal Canadiens are not about to stop selling out Bell Centre, but they could score points with discounted merchandise, while ticket deals may make more sense for a team like the Nashville Predators.

The key with freebies and discounts is to offer them in a way that encourages fans to take advantage of the chance to see hockey, but without damaging the league's tenuous revenue streams. The Center Ice package is one thing that the NHL can use to set a league-wide example of the recognition that without fans, there is no $3.3 billion revenue pie to split.